"All right girls, enough is enough!" Lena clapped her hands and glared at Debi Marble and Cordelia. The two stopped in mid-fight and looked at her in surprise. "There are times for acting like children and times for acting like professionals," the director said sternly. "I need the professionals now. Go to the library. I'll decide who needs to be in the scene."
"Come along, Rupert." Lena grasped Giles' hand and hauled him off the couch. Boris the borzoi whimpered at having his headrest removed, but jumped down to situate himself next to Lena.
"But --!" Cordelia began.
Lena looked at her.
Both women slowly pulled themselves together and tromped out of the student lounge and walked back towards the library, still shooting fiery looks at each other.
"You're going to have to teach me how to do that look," Giles said.
"Oh it's nothing." Lena gathered up her purse. "We learn it first thing in Director's School. I've simply refined it over the years." She took his elbow and led him out of the lounge to the hall. "I have to use it gently with my actors. We don't want sweet Cordelia frightened into a lackluster performance. It's going to be difficult enough getting some spontaneity out of her."
Giles looked at her. "Why did you let them pull each other's hair, if you were already determined to use Cordelia in the scene?"
"Look at the girl, sweetheart. A little cat fight puts a bloom in her cheeks. And it helps if I can get her thinking of you as her prize."
"If you would reconsider --"
"Now now." She put her hands on his back and propelled him down the hall. "Don't get faint of heart on me now, caro. I was hoping that having two pretty girls fighting over you would be a bit of a morale booster. Please accept the gift in the spirit in which it was offered."
"They were fighting over who gets to do the scene!"
"And the scene is kissing you." Lena brought him to a halt in front of the library doors. "Oh good, Rory's crew thought to shut the doors before they set off the smoke gun. One less thing to worry about." She shoved the doors open and pulled Giles into the more-or-less smoke-free room. "Here we are, dears!" she sang out to her crew. "The place is ours now."
Only one of Rory's crew -- the script supervisor -- remained behind. The vampire sat sullenly on the steps leading to the upper tiers of the library, leafing through the pages of one of his books. Giles pulled a cross from his pocket and flashed it at her. She yelped, dropped the book, and back pedalled up the stairs, hissing at him.
"And stay there!" Giles snarled up at her. He picked up the book and glanced at the title: Chicken Soup for the Soul. With an exasperated grimace he pitched it up after her.
Cordelia was standing at the center of the library, wringing her hands. "Is my hair all mussed up? Maybe we should get the hairdresser to go over it again."
"No, it's wonderfully bothered, dearest. Don't touch it," Lena said off-handedly as she consulted with her cameraman. She turned to study Cordelia with a closer eye, then looked at Giles on the other side of the room. "I can see I'm going to have my work cut out for me here," she sighed.
"I can't look like a frump!" Cordelia whined.
"You, treasure love? Never! Go stand by the table over there, will you? Very good! Now please watch. I'm going to show you the way I want you to go about this." Lena sauntered up to Giles, curled her arms up around his neck, and pulled his head hard down for a tongue bruising kiss. Giles staggered and grabbed onto her waist to steady himself. She flicked her tongue against the roof of his mouth, then withdrew. He fell back against the checkout counter.
"Now that --" the director said with great satisfaction as she watched him fumble for a grip on the counter behind him "-- is the result of forty years of hard and studied practice of the fine art of smoochies. Do you think you can have a go at mimicking that one, Cordelia? I could give you a personal demo if you like."
"No no!" Cordelia said hastily. "I can see fine from here. Uh, Wow! Can you really make 'em stagger about like that every time?"
Lena glanced back at her with an amused smile. "The trick is to catch them off balance and hit them hard. Dear Rupert here is now alert to my intentions and on his guard, so it gets a bit trickier."
"Just stop --" Giles began -- but she was running her hand decisively up along the inside of his leg. He grabbed at it, and she wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the back of his head, leaned in to nip at his chin, then pressed in for the kill again. She drew the breath from his mouth, then stuck a finger in his ear. The counter caught him hard in the back as he jumped. Giles slumped down, wheezing for breath and embarrassingly aware of an impending arousal. Frantically he focused on one of the big hairy cameramen, and he got the heat under control.
Lena smiled beatifically at him, then turned towards Cordelia. "That's got him warmed up a bit for you."
Cordelia was staring at Giles with immense eyes. "Uh. Uhm, I don't know. I mean --"
"Maybe you're better off with an actress who doesn't need training wheels?" Debi Marble commented from the back of the room.
Lena looked at the panic-stricken Cordelia and sighed. "Let's see what you've got then, Debi."
Grinning, the school secretary stubbed out her cigarette in a potted plant and walked across the room to Giles. She grabbed him by the neck and laid a deep smudgy kiss on his lips. "Wow!" Debi said finally, as she staggered back. She cleared her throat and looked back at Lena. "How's that? You're not gonna get mileage like that out of some eighteen- year-old."
Giles wheezed and fought to loosen his tie where Debi had wrapped it up around his throat.
"Not bad, dear," Lena admitted. "Although a shade -- hmm -- too experienced for what I have in mind."
"And that smoochie you laid on him wasn't?" Debi said incredulously.
"Well, I was doing that for Cordelia's benefit," Lena admitted. "She's coming into the scene with a certain inherent amount of little-girl innocence, after all."
"Excuse me?!" Cordelia said. "Are you calling me a little girl?"
"Now now, dear," Lena soothed. "Nobody is blaming you for your inexperience. We've all been there."
"Some of us were there longer than others though," Debi said, with a disdainful look at Cordelia. Giles tried to pry her fingers from his jacket sleeve.
"I've logged as much smoochie time as any girl in this school!" Cordelia said. "And I've got standards. Which is more than I can say about certain school employees." She glared at Debi and stepped over to grab Giles' other arm.
"Would you keep your hands to yourselves?" Giles pulled his arms out of their respective grasps.
Somebody started giggling from up above. Everybody in the library turned to stare at the sole remaining black- jacketed vampire. Her expression of mirth vanished. "Hey I'm just slumming," she growled at them, and edged back up a step towards the upper level.
"I've got standards!" Debi continued, shoving Giles to one side all the better to shake a finger at Cordelia. "I just don't get so snotty that I let them get in the way of a good time."
"Oh well. If Giles wants a Good Time, he should call Debi!" Cordelia sniped back. "What, do you sneak into the Guys' restroom late at night to jot that up on the walls?"
"That's bloody well enough of that. Both of you!" Giles grabbed each woman under an arm and hauled them out to the center of the library.
"Ouch!" Cordelia yelped. "Stop it, Giles! You're going to tear my dress!"
"Lena, will you get your crew into their places?" he said to the director.
"Darling, I don't think we're quite ready to --"
"NOW!" Giles yelled.
Lena clapped her hands. "Places everybody! Clapper, up front and ready."
"We're going to follow Mr. Vitali's example and get this in one shot. Yes?" He looked hard at her.
Lena smiled wickedly back at him. "If you're determined to make it so, we can do this, yes dear Rupert."
Giles pushed Cordelia away from him. "Stay!" he barked at her. "And be quiet for two minutes, or I'm going to go stark raving bonkers! Do you understand this bit of minutia?"
Cordelia opened her mouth, then shut it again.
"Hah!" Debi said. "You tell her, Rup --"
He pulled the secretary against him, yanked her head back with a fistful of hair, and kissed her. Debi whimpered, then threw her arms up around his neck and clung like a limpet. Finally she began to wobble from lack of air, and he released her. "Go sit down on the steps there," he panted, more than a little light-headed himself. "And follow Cordelia's good example of quietude."
"ok," Debi said, and wove off in the general direction of the stairs.
"All . . . right then." Giles fought a moment to catch his breath. "Can we get this over with?" A curl of smoke tumbled beneath his nose. "What the bloody fuck?"
"Just a small smoke pot, darling," Lena said, gesturing the sneaking crewman to one side. "For atmosphere. Do go on. You're on a roll."
"A roll of something illicit," he growled and turned towards Cordelia.
She stood staring at him like a deer caught in the headlight. "This is like -- It's Ripper," she said. "Isn't it?"
"Do you want it to be?" he said dangerously.
Cordelia stepped hesitantly forward, placed her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. Giles wrapped an arm around her waist, threaded the fingers of his other hand through her hair, and drew her up to his mouth.
Her lips parted ever so slightly and her arms snaked down around his back. Their tongues touched, and she gasped.
"Cordelia," he whispered softly into her mouth.
"Mmmm-ah," she replied.
After an eternal moment of sharing her breath, he came back into a hazy awareness of where they were. He stepped back to look into her dark bewildered eyes.
"Huh-whew," Cordelia said, staring back.
He became uncomfortably aware of the state of -- heat -- between the two of them. Set lights, Giles reminded himself hastily. It was the intense set lights. "Excuse me. I didn't mean to get quite so -- uhm --"
"Never mind!" Cordelia drew back with a look of -- wistfulness? "Hey, that was pretty good, right?" She turned to face Lena. "So do I have the part, or not?"
"Yes sweetheart, never any doubt about it," Lena reassured her. "Rory wanted you. It wouldn't do for me to countermand his casting decisions."
"So . . . we're going to film it for real now?"
"You didn't know? Oh of course. Clapper!" Lena motioned the clapboard carrying crewman over. He snapped the clapboard down in front of Giles and Cordelia. "That's a take then. And we did it in one, as requested by both Rory and darling Rupert. You dears are pros."
"That was it?" Cordelia looked stunned. "All that fuss for --"
"One thirty second smoochies shot. Yes, it's absurd, dear. Welcome to Hollywood. Just be glad this isn't my film. I would've done several hours of retakes." Lena wended her way through her now bustling crewmen and embraced Giles for a sound kiss. "There, darling, that wasn't so bad was it? Don't fret -- we're going to have one hell of a post- production party later in the week, but first I have to see to my lemurs. I'll have my A.D. contact you with your checks. I simply refuse to descend to Rory's way of handling the payroll. Oh and I'll send you the name of an agent. Rory has been taking horrible advantage of you and Cordelia. You should have a decent contract next time out."
"There will not be --" Giles said decisively "-- a next time."
"Well." She stepped away to light a cigarette. "Then you should have died a graceful death in the hallway scene. I told you not to extemporise in Rory's films."
"You never told me any such thing."
"I should have told you, then. Even so, you know Rory well enough by now. You should have known better. Where are my puppies?" She looked around, then waved at Xander and Willow as they came in through the library doors. "Thank you dear children for taking care of my babies!"
"They're nice dogs," Willow said. And added, "I've always wanted a puppy."
Lena looked up from landing a kiss on Natasha's head. "No puppy? You shall have the pick of my darling girl's first litter."
Willow perked up. "Really? Except my parents --" She suddenly looked around. "You're leaving? What about the scene?"
"Done. In the can. The 'i's are dotted and the 't's crossed." Lena stood up. "Oh Debi!" she waved at the school secretary, who was standing on the steps looking about dazedly at the commotion of the set breakdown. "You have my number dear girl! Call me please, we'll do girl-talk and lunch! And where did Rory's horrid script supervisor go to? There you are! Will you get on the phone, sweet thing, and tell Rory his scene is done? I need my lemurs right away!"